Chapter 77#
Fu Yucheng hesitated for a moment, then lightly knocked on the bronze ring on the gate.
Compared to the cold and elegant style of the White Rose Palace, this Imperial villa located on the outskirts of the Ninth Ecological Zone appeared exquisite and ancient.
Near this small villa, there were neither drones patrolling twenty-four hours a day nor guards wearing exoskeleton armor. It was quiet to the point of being peaceful, reminiscent of old-style Jiangnan gardens.
Like this low-profile and simple villa, Fu Yucheng was also dressed in simple casual clothes, not even bringing a single attendant—he didn’t want to alarm too many people.
“Knock, knock.” He knocked on the bronze ring again.
“Creak—” With a soft sound, the gate opened.
A white-haired old woman poked her head out and looked at him in confusion: “Who are you looking for?”
Fu Yucheng lowered his eyes: “I’m looking for… Rong Xu.”
Calling her by her name like this was practically treasonous, but the old woman only froze for a moment before saying: “Oh, right, the master said someone would come looking for her today. Follow me.”
The old woman led Fu Yucheng, weaving through several corridors and passing through a small plum forest before finally arriving outside the master’s bedroom.
The old woman whispered: “Master, the guest has arrived.”
At the entrance of the bedroom, a bamboo curtain hung low, obscuring the view inside. A woman coughed softly a few times and said gently: “Yuan-er, come in.”
Fu Yucheng took a deep breath, lifted the curtain, and stepped inside.
The light in the bedroom was somewhat dim; he could only vaguely see a woman leaning against the headboard behind the light gauze of the bed ahead.
The woman pushed aside the gauze, revealing a haggard yet delicate face. It was almost unbelievable that she was once the swift and decisive Empress Rong Xu.
Her dark eyes, with a hint of dark green, quietly watched her younger son.
“Cough, cough…” Rong Xu coughed low again and extended a thin, bony hand, “Yuan-er, sit here. Let me have a good look at you.”
She looked very weak, not even referring to herself as “We.”
Fu Yucheng looked at her expressionlessly for a moment before sitting down as requested.
Rong Xu wanted to hold his hand, but he moved it away.
Rong Xu gave a bitter smile: “Yuan-er, after all these years, do you still blame me?”
Fu Yucheng was silent for a long time before saying: “The name Rong Yuan is one I haven’t used for many years.”
“I know… you changed your name. But I still want to call you Yuan-er, alright?” Rong Xu gazed at him deeply, seemingly wanting to see her son’s appearance in meticulous detail.
“Suit yourself. I came this time to tell you one thing.” Fu Yucheng paused and said slowly, “I opened the tower.”
Rong Xu said softly: “I know. You not only opened the tower, but you also saw… everything inside.”
“Why?” Fu Yucheng said through gritted teeth.
Rong Xu did not answer. She stared blankly at her younger son, whom she hadn’t seen in a long time, and suddenly reached out to touch his face: “You’ve grown up… I’m so happy.”
Fu Yucheng slapped her hand away: “Don’t give me that! That tower—what exactly is going on? Why would the Rong family do such a thing?!”
Rong Xu lowered her eyes and said softly: “In this matter, I had no choice either.”
“No choice?” Fu Yucheng couldn’t help but sneer, “Then tell me directly—why did the Rong family build that goddamned tower? Why engage in that goddamned sacrifice? Why bury so many innocent lives? Why? Tell me the real reason behind this.”
Rong Xu was silent for a long time before suddenly saying: “Actually, even if you hadn’t asked, I would have told you… Now, you are the sole heir of the Rong family; you must know all this.”
She said softly: “Yuan-er, do you know about the Kuiper Battle?”
“…The Kuiper Battle? Of course I know.” Fu Yucheng was slightly taken aback, not understanding why she suddenly mentioned that distant battle. “Over two hundred years ago, when the Deep Space Fleet passed through the Kuiper Belt of the solar system, an internal rebellion suddenly broke out. After Rong Qian suppressed the rebellion, he overthrew the coalition government and officially took the throne.”
Rong Xu sighed: “The Kuiper Battle… was not an internal rebellion, but an encounter with an external enemy.”
Fu Yucheng was confused: “External enemy? What external enemy?”
Rong Xu said softly: “An enemy… from a Type III civilization.”
She didn’t wait for Fu Yucheng to question her and continued: “Back then, your great-grandfather’s good friend, Professor Du Yueheng, head of the Fisher Laboratory, proposed the theory of civilization levels. According to his theory, civilizations that haven’t yet developed mental power are Type I; those that have preliminarily developed mental power are Type II—like humanity now; those with deeply developed mental power are Type III… The hallmark of a Type III civilization is that mental power can exist independently of the physical body.”
Fu Yucheng furrowed his brows deeply, his heart full of doubts, but he didn’t interrupt her.
“Back then, your great-grandfather Rong Qian and the Deep Space Fleet he led encountered such a Type III civilization army in the Kuiper Belt.” Rong Xu paused, “It was a purely mechanized army without physical bodies—their mental power was attached to a chip within a robotic frame. They were ageless, immortal, and indestructible.”
Fu Yucheng went blank for a moment, processing the massive amount of information contained in those few short sentences.
He felt a bit dizzy: “You mean, there was no internal rebellion in the Deep Space Fleet back then, but they encountered another, Type III civilization? But the historical records…”
“Those public historical records are all forged. To avoid causing panic, the truth of the Kuiper Battle has always been the Rong family’s highest secret.” Rong Xu waved her hand lightly, and an AI projected a large amount of information, “See for yourself.”
Fu Yucheng carefully identified the complex information, his eyebrows knitting tighter and tighter.
Rong Xu pointed to a line of messy handwriting in the projection: “This line of characters is the first message that Type III civilization sent to humanity.”
Fu Yucheng stared at that peculiar line of text—he knew dozens of languages, but that messy handwriting belonged to none of them.
If forced to describe it, the script looked like a short “wavy line.”
Rong Xu also looked at the text: “After Rong Qian discovered the fleet, he tried to contact them. The other side only replied with this single line of characters. This wavy line looks a bit like the capital English letter M. Combined with that robotic army, which seemed to follow a single command center—cruel and bloodthirsty, like the venomous snake-hair of Medusa.”
“So, we call them the Medusa civilization, Medusa,” she said softly.
“Our Deep Space Fleet was simply no match for them. The vast majority of soldiers and commanders didn’t even understand what had happened. At the time, Rong Qian and Du Yueheng were on the same flagship. After discussing it, they decided to surrender.”
Fu Yucheng felt dizzy; this was simply too absurd, running contrary to all his common knowledge… yet the large amount of data projected by the AI supported every word Rong Xu said.
“In the end, Rong Qian and Du Yueheng reached a secret agreement with Medusa… The terms were simple: the other side would spare the Solar System civilization, but as a price, every twenty years, humanity had to offer enough nutrients to Medusa—the brains of controllers are precisely the best nutrients for nourishing mental power.”
“To successfully fulfill this secret agreement, Rong Qian overthrew the coalition government and established the Central Empire. He divided the empire into ecological zones and industrial zones, using extremely harsh methods to control the exchange of information among the populace, and proposed the Pathfinder Project—all of this was to fulfill that secret agreement.”
“Proactively offering up the brains of one’s compatriots to live in humiliation… or being completely penned by the Medusa civilization as livestock to be slaughtered at will. At that time, Rong Qian could only choose between the two. He unilaterally took it upon himself to choose the former for humanity.”
Rong Xu paused and added: “No, one should say… Rong Qian and Du Yueheng together chose the former on behalf of humanity.”
Fu Yucheng stood blankly for a long time before murmuring: “Back then, when Rong Qian brashly restored the monarchy, even his close friend Mo Hanchuan fiercely opposed it… but Du Yueheng knew the truth, so his attitude was very ambiguous, practically supporting Rong Qian’s coronation.”
Rong Xu nodded: “Correct. As a friend to both, Mo Hanchuan didn’t know any of this. Rong Qian and Du Yueheng both didn’t want to involve their friend… because it was just too heavy. They didn’t even know if the choice they made for humanity was right or wrong.”
Fu Yucheng remained silent.
Rong Xu paused and continued: “Yuan-er, do you remember how Du Yueheng died?”
Fu Yucheng said in a low voice: “There was an accident in the Fisher Laboratory, causing a major incident. As the head of the lab, Du Yueheng was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court. He didn’t appeal, and Rong Qian also tacitly accepted the verdict. On the day of the execution, the streets were empty. Before Du Yueheng could reach the execution ground, he was dragged from the prison van by an agitated mob and beaten to death… When Mo Hanchuan arrived, the body was already unrecognizable.”
Rong Xu sighed softly: “No one will ever forget that terrible accident. Du Yueheng’s death wasn’t undeserved; it’s what he deserved. Yuan-er, you should be very clear about the events surrounding that accident.”
Fu Yucheng murmured: “After Rong Qian took the throne, he allocated massive funds to the Fisher Laboratory. Everyone knew Du Yueheng was the emperor’s favorite. But a few years later, due to a laboratory system error, a batch of heterogeneous antimatter waste was thrown into the Sun, causing it to become a red giant… The Sun’s volume suddenly expanded, and Earth became tidally locked, turning into a wasteland.”
He paused and added: “In a stroke of luck within the misfortune, shortly before the accident, Rong Qian moved the positions of nine Dyson Clouds. Those nine Dyson Clouds happened to block the front of the Earth. The special material of the Dyson Clouds absorbed most of the light and heat impact… otherwise, Earth would have long ago become a living hell, and even the twilight belt wouldn’t exist.”
“A stroke of luck within the misfortune?” Rong Xu chuckled, “Yuan-er, do you think things could really be that coincidental?”
Fu Yucheng stared at her, a deep chill gradually rising in his heart.
After a long time, he said hoarsely: “You mean, none of this was a coincidence? Du Yueheng intentionally threw antimatter waste into the Sun to turn it into a red giant? And Rong Qian also knew the truth, so he moved the Dyson Clouds to the sun-facing side of Earth in advance, wanting to preserve a spark of life for Earth?”
Rong Xu nodded very slightly.
“Why would Du Yueheng do that? And since Rong Qian knew, why would he allow it? This… this makes no sense.” Fu Yucheng shook his head in disbelief, “Du Yueheng almost destroyed Earth and made himself a sinner for all eternity, eventually paying with his life. What exactly was he after? And what was Rong Qian after?”
Rong Xu was silent for a moment and said softly: “The Pathfinder Project, jointly formulated by Rong Qian and Du Yueheng, was divided into two parts: the first part involved a large number of intelligent robots using Mercury’s resources to build new Dyson Clouds; the second part involved selecting hundreds of thousands of controllers every twenty years to go to the new Dyson Clouds. Of course, you already know that the second part was a lie. These controllers’ brains were removed and offered to Medusa.”
She paused and continued: “However, the first part of the project—those new Dyson Clouds—were all built in reality. Up to now, in addition to the traditional nine major Dyson Clouds, fourteen new ones have been built. If these twenty-three Dyson Clouds are linked together in a honeycomb structure, they would form a massive space weapon capable of contending with Medusa—but all the preparations are ready except for one thing.”
Fu Yucheng realized something: “Energy.”
Rong Xu said word by word: “Exactly, energy. And the red giant sun is our best weapon energy source.”
Fu Yucheng closed his eyes: “So, back then, Rong Qian and Du Yueheng, through the Pathfinder Project, used the sacrifice of their compatriots to pacify Medusa while simultaneously building the Dyson Clouds into a massive space weapon… Finally, Du Yueheng feigned an accidental error to turn the Sun into a red giant, providing sufficient energy for the Dyson Clouds.”
He was silent for a moment and then said hoarsely: “If that’s the case, since both the weapon and the energy were there, why has the Rong family never acted for two whole centuries?”
Rong Xu looked deeply at her younger son and said gently: “True, we have the weapon and the energy—or rather, the gun and the bullet. But we’re still missing a sharpshooter. The Dyson Clouds, this massive space weapon, must be activated by a super-S-class omnipotent controller to ensure the absolute stability of all data—in two hundred years, you are the first.”
Fu Yucheng shook his head unconsciously: “I’m only S-class…”
Rong Xu smiled: “Yuan-er, have you forgotten what my ability is?”
“You are a Special-type controller; your ability is… Absolute Prophecy,” Fu Yucheng murmured.
“I can’t prophesy everything; I can only see countless possibilities within intersecting space-times… Yuan-er, regarding your future, it was only in the last few days that I saw a few scattered fragments.” Rong Xu stared intently at him, “But I know you will become a super-S-class controller… You will definitely win, no matter who the opponent is.”
Fu Yucheng was silent for a long time before asking: “What can I do?”
“Back then, to prevent the Rong family from using public tools for private ends, Du Yueheng used absolutely pure blue-gold to forge two peerless Soul Weapons—these two Soul Weapons are the keys to activating the Dyson Clouds. One of them, ‘Silent Blue Moon,’ is on your waist; the other, ‘Grim Reaper’s Wings,’ Du Yueheng gave to Mo Hanchuan. He hoped that in the long future, the Mo family would be able to keep the Rong family in check.”
“Silent Blue Moon and Grim Reaper’s Wings?” Fu Yucheng paused, then suddenly remembered something, “That Grim Reaper portrait in your study was a metaphor for these two Soul Weapons?”
“Yes.” Rong Xu nodded, “Unfortunately, after Du Yueheng’s death, Mo Hanchuan didn’t whole-heartedly assist Rong Qian as he had intended. The two friends turned against each other and fought bitterly… Finally, Mo Hanchuan wandered into deep space and disappeared.”
“Did Grim Reaper’s Wings also go missing with him?” Fu Yucheng frowned.
“Grim Reaper’s Wings didn’t go missing,” Rong Xu said slowly. “Mo Hanchuan led the Fourth Fleet to wander deep space. Near Titan—Saturn’s moon—the fleet split. The soldiers unwilling to leave the solar system remained on Titan and established a human settlement. For some reason, Mo Hanchuan left Grim Reaper’s Wings to them and took the remaining people to leave the solar system.”
“Grim Reaper’s Wings is at the human settlement on Titan?” Fu Yucheng rubbed his brow, “I also know of that settlement, but they have no connection to the Dyson Clouds.”
Rong Xu looked at him for a while and suddenly said softly: “The current Lord of Titan has a very eccentric temper, but he has a precious daughter named Ling Sha. I have contacted this Lord, and he indicated that if the heir of the Rong family is willing to marry Princess Ling Sha… then he is willing to offer Grim Reaper’s Wings as the princess’s dowry.”
Fu Yucheng froze.
The former Empress stared intently at her younger son and said word by word: “This is the simplest, bloodless way.”
Fu Yucheng said hoarsely: “I’ve already…”
“I know you’ve already promised someone,” Rong Xu interrupted him without hesitation. “But your personal feelings are simply insignificant in the face of the big picture. We have spent two centuries and sacrificed tens of millions of lives for this day… You should be very clear that we cannot afford to lose, and humanity cannot afford to lose.”
Fu Yucheng stood blankly for a long time before suddenly saying: “Maybe I can just seize that Grim Reaper’s Wings.”
Rong Xu said coldly: “How will you seize it? You want to start a war? How many more people do you want to see die? Or do you want to infiltrate Titan alone? Have you considered your current status? If you were to go missing, who would govern the Dyson Clouds? There are at least ten A-class controllers in the nine major ecological zones; who could keep them in check?”
Fu Yucheng was speechless.
Rong Xu paused and softened her voice: “Furthermore, other than the two of us, no one can know about this. Not a single person must discover even the slightest abnormality… even if that person is someone you trust most, their every word and action could inadvertently leak information. The mental power of a Type III civilization can invade the brains of the vast majority of humans. Even a small palace maid by your side could be a spy for Medusa. The price of failure is simply too heavy; no one can bear the responsibility, not even you.”
“Yuan-er, do you understand? You can only face this enemy alone,” Rong Xu said solemnly.
Fu Yucheng lowered his eyes and said nothing.
Subconsciously, he knew Rong Xu was right.
But, but…
“Yuan-er, you must firmly remember the price the Rong family has paid over the past two hundred years, the price Du Yueheng paid, and the price humanity has paid… This matter absolutely, absolutely cannot be allowed to fail; there can be no mistakes. Your personal feelings are not worth mentioning. If you truly cannot bear it, then resolve it decisively like cutting through a tangled knot—do not give people hope.” The Empress stared fixedly at her son, her voice suddenly rising, “Do you understand?”
Fu Yucheng closed his eyes and said softly: “I understand.”